No love, Rite Aid

Sigh. I keep trying to post, I really do. And then every night I fall asleep on the couch instead. I'm still plugging on though.

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Our prescription plan switched a while ago, so instead of using Express Scripts, we go to Rite Aid if we want a three month supply of prescriptions. In general, I'm happier with the arrangement, since I can get a refill the day a medication runs out and don't have to wait for it to meander its way to our house in the mail, starting in St Louis and apparently occasionally routed through Swaziland. But I have a couple big complaints about their web site, and what is the Internet for but rants about petty things?

The first is my experience today, when my web browser forgot my previously saved password and I didn't have any memory of it. So clicked on the request to have my password reset. Normally, when this happens the website simply sends a password reset link to the e-mail address you have on file. This prevents people from casually hacking your account, since they would need access to your e-mail account as well. Rite Aid's website, however, sends the reset link to an e-mail account you enter on the spot. !!! You then have to answer a security question, but those only go so far, since several of my friends and family could probably answer them correctly. I'm not worried about any of them attempting to hack into my prescriptions, but some people have insane family members who might. You also have to fill out an insane number of Captchas, which again wouldn't deter the humans who could answer my security questions. And perhaps most aggravatingly, if you don't answer a security question correctly because perhaps you can't remember if you put "Elementary" at the end of the name of your first school or you like a bunch of tv shows so you can't quite remember which one you said was your favorite, you're not given the option to try to answer a different question. So to reset my password, I had to answer two security questions and fill out three Captchas, none of which would be more than aggravating to someone who knows me trying to hack my account, and definitely not as secure as simply sending the reset link to the e-mail account they have on file for me, without any of the rest of that mishegas.

Petty complaint 2: When I log into my Rite Aid account and look at my prescription, they have assigned me a "Prescription Score," their assessment of how well they think I'm doing taking my medications. I can't say how strenuously I object to this. I'm an adult and it's none of their damn business whether I take my medications or glue them to a paper plate in the pill version of macaroni art. It's infantilizing and demeaning.

They can't possibly know whether or not I'm taking my meds anyway; all they can know is how often I refill them. Which leads to the thing that really chaps my hide: the scores they assign make absolutely no sense. I've been faithfully refilling one medication every 90 days for ages, and despite that, this summer the score for it was 65 percent. It's since risen to 100 percent. Another medication, which I've been refilling just as faithfully, is currently at 95 percent and falling. If they're going to engage in infantilizing and intrusive behavior like grading me on how well I take my medications using nonsensical criteria, the least they could do is do it accurately. Like any good nerd, I want the grades I've earned, dammit.